64

                                    

                                          

MARIA 
I'm not going to take it off, Maria. Forget it.
The words rang over and over in Maria's head even days after.
She couldn't stop thinking about it, that little part of her that had thought Bran had been truly changing, unable to come to terms with the fact that he'd actually been able to look her in the face and say those words.
He wasn't going to take the collar off. He was serious. 
She'd known before that Bran was stubborn but with that conversation, he'd unlocked a whole new level of stubbornness entirely. 
What person would consciously, in their right mind, pick dying over doing anything they could to help themselves? 
Bran, apparently, because that was exactly what he was doing. 
Maria had almost freaked out two days ago when the oracle had pointed at her and told her that she was the one that Bran needed. At first she'd been floored, terribly confused, and it wasn't until the oracle explained that Bran had been hexed by a sorceress, the Queen of Evil, that the words made sense to her. 
It had been a bit spooky, she wasn't going to lie, because for a moment there it had seemed like something out of a fairytale, her being the destined one who could help Bran and such. But then the explanation brought her back to reality, reminding her that it was the furthest thing from a fairytale. 
She was the only one who could help him because the deed had been done by a powerful sorceress, as the oracle had said, and only one as powerful as she could undo it. It wasn't news that Maria was powerful, that hadn't come as a surprise to her, and sure, there were a lot of powerful sorceresses, some even more powerful than Maria herself, but they wouldn't help unless they wanted to. 
That was the difference between the witches and the Sorceri.
Witches demanded a fee for almost everything they did for anyone; the Sorceri did it simply because they wanted to. No matter how high and attractive prize was, the Sorceri could not be lured into doing anything if they didn't see a reason in doing it. 
It went without saying that Bran couldn't get any of them to help him now—not when all they wanted was his head on a platter—so she was the only one who could help him. 
But he wasn't going to let her because he thought she was going to run if he so much as removed the collar. Like she was some sort of animal.
How fucked up was that? 
She thought things had been changing for the better between them. She thought she was no longer his captive. She thought that he liked her—genuinely liked her.
She thought that they were finally moving forward. 
All these things, she'd wanted to say to him but she hadn't been able to because there had been two other people in the room and one of them was his friend—his friend whom she'd accidentally killed his mate, who hated her with a vegeance and didn't know about the new development between her and Bran and might not approve of it even if he did know. 
No, not might. Definitely won't. 
Gods, she'd been so hurt when he'd refused to let her help, to take her collar off. That only meant that he still saw her as a captive and didn't want her going anywhere. 
Well, at least now she knew the answer to her question.
She'd been considering bringing the collar up when next they talked but now she knew what his answer would be. 
Bloody infuriatingly stubborn man. 
When she'd stepped into the room that day, she'd been shocked to see that his injuries were still very much as fresh as they'd been the day he had them. If possible, they'd gotten worse.